


Telanadas

by biowhathaveyoudone



Category: Dragon Age (Video Games), Dragon Age - All Media Types, Dragon Age: Inquisition
Genre: Gen
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2015-06-01
Updated: 2015-06-03
Packaged: 2018-04-02 10:40:30
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 2,675
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4056946
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/biowhathaveyoudone/pseuds/biowhathaveyoudone
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Arlane Lavellan didn't know what to expect when she was sent to scout the Conclave. But when she opens her eyes to the Mark, the Breach, and so many people expecting different things from her, it's beyond even her wildest speculations. This is her story and journey through Inquisition. Eventual slow burn Bull/Inquisitor. Will add tags and change rating as necessary as new chapters go up. (Telanadas means Nothing is Inevitable)</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. A Journey Begins

**Author's Note:**

> Arlane is pronounced Ahr-luh-nay  
> Each chapter will be complete in itself since I don't have a schedule that is conducive to regular updates. This story will follow Inquisition's story line but won't be a retelling of gameplay, instead focusing on different character's thoughts and moments outside what the game shows. 
> 
> This chapter is brief and meant to be an introduction to full length chapters to come. Enjoy!

Solas walked calmly between two guards as they followed Leliana into the depths of the Haven chantry. His breathing quickened ever so slightly as they began to pass empty cells. Excitement. Trepidation. Curiosity. He banished them all. They would do him no good if he wished to find the key to close the Breach from the prisoner as they called her. He still marveled that she had walked physically through the Fade and was still alive. He had been so sure she would die before he could convince Cassandra and Leliana to allow him to observe her. The clanging of a cell door brought him out of his thoughts and he stepped forward, taking his first look at the prisoner.

He blinked. June’s vallaslin lay light against her dark skin and along with her pointed ears, bared for all to see by the haircut that left the sides of her head shorn almost smooth, it marked her plainly as Dalish yet it was not those that drew his attention. Lean and lithe the people were so often described as, but this woman carried extra weight and not all in muscle if he was any judge obscured as she was by an unflattering outfit no doubt intended on deflecting attention. The flare of the Mark on her hand cleared his mind of the superficial and he moved forward to kneel by her hand, examining the green whorls, reminiscent of the patterns on the Orb, that flowed across her hand and began to creep up her wrist. They surrounded a long gash across her palm that crackled with energy as the burst continued before fading, the pull of the Fade that had accompanied the flash of green light, fading with it.

Raising her palm closer to his face, he studied the gash. Connected to the Fade. Even without the pull when it flared, which he suspected came in time with the pulses of the Breach, it would have to be. Being thrown into the Fade could have been caused by the Orb itself, but it was nowhere to be found when she reappeared. That left the Mark. It flared sharply as if reacting to his thoughts. His eyes sharpened as the whorls above her wrist crept upwards slightly.

“You’ve found something,” said Leliana, who hadn’t left once he was let into the cell.

“I believe these pulses to be in time with the expansion of the Breach,” he replied calmly, never taking his eyes off her hand and wrist. “The Mark is also expanding. It will kill her.” Leliana crossed her arms, tapping a finger against her armored bicep.

“Can it close the Breach?”

“It is undoubtedly connected to the Breach. More than that I cannot say.” _Though I have thoughts on the matter,_ he finished to himself. Leliana had proven more willing to accept his expertise than Cassandra, but he could anticipate what the Seeker would do and say. He could not say that as easily about Sister Nightingale.

“Then she could try.” He frowned now, glancing up at the spymaster.

“ _If_ she should ever wake up,” he replied hesitantly. The Mark flared again and with it came a small groan from the prisoner. Solas blinked, his eyes returning to the Mark first, then the elf’s face. She shifted, her face twisting even after the flare had passed. The reaction was unlikely to be sympathetic to the Mark then. Could she… It wasn’t possible. Leliana chuckled.

“It seems our prisoner looks to prove you wrong. We can only hope.” As Leliana left him to continue studying the Mark, his eyes stayed on the elf’s face for a moment longer. Who was this woman? What had brought her here? Would she truly prove him wrong and wake up?

Pushing the questions aside, he settled down back at the palm of her hand. For now, they were unimportant. The Breach loomed. He could not leave it to hope she would wake. He had to find the answer himself. Guilt woke briefly before he pushed that away too. Mind racing with arcane and new knowledge alike, he bent over the Mark, searching for answers as the woman beside him continued to sleep.


	2. Apprehension

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Arlane = Ahr-luh-nay

Arlane stood as the shem argued over her as if she wasn’t there and heard Keeper Istamaethoriel’s last words to her repeat in her mind.

“You are crafter, but possess the skills of our hunters. This is what we need. Crafters know the hearts of others. They must to create the bows and weapons that serve them best. You must go to this gathering and find out how far this war will reach, if there will be war. Use crafter and hunter. Be our eyes and ears. Go, Arlane Lavellan. We stand proud of you and will await your return.” If only the Keeper had known what was to come.

Arlane had arrived near Haven a week before the Conclave, keeping to the surrounding forests and beginnings of the mountains. To keep suspicious eyes off her, or at least to lessen them, she had swapped her Dalish armor for a mercenary’s coat taken off a foolish man who thought to follow her back into the forest. When she threw the hood over her head and kept her head down, she could walk among the gathering shem and listen. Here was where not being built as shem expected elves to be became an advantage. The average woman stood almost a foot taller than her, the men even more so, yet the whispers she heard about her assumed elf-blooded at most, though the common theory was a human-dwarf offspring. She couldn’t blame them. An elf and half she had been called once by a shem who had thought it fun to discover the Dalish camping by his city. Indeed she was, easily 40 pounds heavier than the biggest of her clan, most of it carried in her stomach. But here, she was almost grateful for it. By the time the Conclave had started, she had received a decent understanding of what had happened among the shem to bring them almost to war. But then…

The Mark crackled, bringing her out of her thoughts as she hid a wince. The sky torn open. Unknown magic on her hand, creeping up her arm. A prisoner to the shem who thought her responsible. An elf neither Dalish nor city who looked at her as if he wasn’t entirely convinced she was of the same race. The dwarf was companionable enough and with a crossbow she desperately wanted to examine. Yet even he had not thought to ask her name. At least neither of them had taken to calling her ‘the prisoner’ as if it _were_ her actual name. And with that, she was full circle and tuned back into the shem’s conversation. But just as she realized they were trying to figure out the best way to get to the Temple of Sacred Ashes, the Breach flared. Her hand shook as the Mark reacted and she bit the inside of her cheek to keep from crying out, taking ahold of her wrist with her other hand. The flare snapped off, but the pain lingered. Yet, it appeared that was enough to remind them all that she was still standing there.

“How do you think we should proceed?” asked Cassandra. Bitter words burst from Arlane’s mouth before she could think of stopping them.

“Now you’re asking me what _I_ think?” Solas spoke up in minor support and Cassandra put in her thoughts as well. But Arlane had both already schooled herself and made her decision. Shem battle tactics confused her, especially the idea that the risk of charging straight forward was somehow less than the faster mountain path just because scouts went missing. And that was before she even addressed the confusion of how easily they wrote off their own people. So when they had all stopped talking once again, she directed them to the mountain path, receiving a nod of approval from Varric and a frown from Cassandra, though that was becoming commonplace. They set off quickly and as Arlane looked off at where the Temple would be, she felt apprehension in the pit of her stomach even though she couldn’t say why.

* * *

 

Taking her eyes off the few bodies of the scouts they had found, Arlane looked up at the Breach, so much closer now. She didn’t think she had truly understood the gravity of the situation until she had seen demons appear out of thin air in the mining tunnels they had come through. The Mark crackled and she lifted her sleeve to see the markings that had only been just above her wrist when she woke had curled up half her forearm. But looking at them, she felt something tug, quite unlike any other feeling she had associated with the Mark. Frowning, she concentrated on the sensation. It tugged again. An anticipation. Like she had when she heard a ram break a twig in the underbrush. There was something nearby. And not just something.

“There’s a rift ahead,” she said, moving forward. It took only a few steps to reveal the top of the glowing tear down the hill. If any of her companions realized she had known before seeing it, they didn’t comment. A few more steps brought sight of the rest of the scouts, hemmed in by the rift and the demons that had spawned from it. Drawing her daggers, her footsteps grew lighter and she ducked under the swipe of a Shade. She was getting used to fighting with her companions. Or guards. Whatever they were. Bianca made a distinct sound as she rearmed herself and Arlane knew not to make sudden movements in the few moments between that and the thunk of her fire. Solas’ magic seemed to dance around wherever she moved and Cassandra was as blunt and direct as her speech. The group of demons fell to them. But as the last vanished, sucked back into the rift, it changed, tendrils of green snaking out to land on random places around them in a strange roiling circle.

“Another wave,” said Solas calmly as Cassandra and the leader of the scouts spoke briefly. New demons appeared as the circles exploded and two leapt from the ground.

“Horrors!” called a scout. The Horrors screeched like nothing Arlane had ever heard before and to make matters worse, carried a shockwave with their scream that sent all too close to them to the ground. But they still died like the Shades and Wisps. Thrusting her hand towards the Rift, she felt the jolt as Mark and Rift joined. As with the first, she the sting of the Mark’s magic envelop her hand, felt the strain of it race through her body, and though her arm shook with the effort, the Rift closed. She had hidden the wave of dizziness, kept her knees from buckling after closing the first rift. She had no such luck with this. Even as Solas had proclaimed it closed, she had fallen to her knees, flexing the fingers of her left hand against the feeling that wasn’t pain but most certainly wasn’t pleasant either.

“Hey, you okay?” asked Varric as a tentative hand pressed against her shoulder.

“Strange,” came Solas’ voice. “The Mark is a part of her, yet drains her. It didn’t happen with the first. Or did it?”

“Be nice Chuckles,” chided Varric. As Arlane raised her head, she saw Cassandra talking with the scouts.

“Are you okay…?” asked Varric pausing awkwardly before wincing. “And I just realized I never asked your name. I’m sorry.” She studied him a moment. He seemed to be telling the truth and even if she denied him here, she already knew he was too affable to stay distant from.

“My name is Arlane,” she replied as she pushed herself to her feet. She saw Solas blink before gazing at her, as if reevaluating her.

_He’s surprised my name is Elvish,_ she realized.

“And are you okay Arlane?” asked Varric.

“Yes,” she replied. “It’s passed already.”

“It happened at the first rift?” demanded Solas. She stiffened slightly but answered.

“Somewhat.”

“Hmmm, a cumulative effect. Interesting,” he said almost to himself before gazing off and losing himself in thought.

“He does that a lot. You’ll get used to it,” assured Varric with a grin. A smile tugged at the corners of her mouth and though it didn’t appear, Varric’s grin widened all the same.

“Come. We are almost there,” said Cassandra. Even the hint of a smile vanished as the apprehension returned loudly as Arlane looked towards the ladder down and the Breach ever closer.

* * *

 

She had been right to be apprehensive. Corpses fused to the ground, some still burning, stood guard outside the Temple, their contorted figures and empty eye sockets burning into her as she had passed. Even inside the Temple, the smell of Fade-burnt flesh lingered. Up close, the Breach yawned across the entire stretch of sky she could see and the Rift that stood in the middle of the Temple seemed to feed from it, dwarfing the previous Rifts she had closed. To top things off, a voice echoed around them as they worked to find a way down. It sent cold running down her spine, but just as the apprehension before, she couldn’t say why. A gleam off to the right in the rock face drew her attention and the party came to a halt at a group of crystals seemingly revealed in the explosion. Immediately, Varric began to speak. Red lyrium he called it. As Cassandra and Solas joined the conversation he had started, Arlane moved closer to it, not hearing the words behind her. She had never seen anything like it, no mineral in a cave, no deposit on a cliff face, no metal to smith with even matched it. It shimmered and beneath its crystal face seemed to flow and move like a river beneath a frozen crust of ice. As she reached her hand out, Varric’s hand clamped down around her wrist.

“Don’t touch it!” he said almost frantically. “It’s evil. It will drive you mad.” Arlane blinked and for the first time, recognized tiny whispers at the back of her mind. She stepped slowly back from it and Varric released her.

“Thank you,” she said quietly. He only nodded in return. Her mind reeled. Too much way too fast. The Mark. The Breach. Rifts. Red lyrium. What was going on? Why was she in the middle of all of it? And there was only more piled on top. More voices, one the Divine’s, another her own. Then a giant vision of something she couldn’t remember happening no matter how hard she thought. The only thing that pulled her out of her rapidly panicking mind was the reopening of the Rift and the appearance of the Pride demon. It was an enemy beyond any she had faced previously. Every time it regrew its defenses, she had to disrupt the rift, and each time she grew more and more exhausted until all she could do after leaving it open to attacks was shift to stealth and try and regain her breath.

Cassandra struck the final blow, immediately turning and yelling for Arlane to seal the rift. The elf reappeared, took a deep breath, and thrust her hand out, struggling against the giant rift once more. Cassandra yelled at her, urgent and commanding, and Arlane forced herself to take a step forward, pushing at the Mark, hoping maybe that would help. The tension grew. She gritted her teeth, felt her knees try to buckle but the connection she held to the rift keeping her upright. Nausea bit at the back of her throat. The not painful, yet not pleasant feeling she had no way to describe was climbing up her arm and began to bring fire in its wake. But even as she felt a scream rising in her chest, white exploded into her vision and she fell into nothing.


End file.
